{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"80,000 Hours Podcast","title":"#48 - Brian Christian on better living through the wisdom of computer science","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":11730,"description":"Please let us know if we've helped you: Fill out our annual impact survey\n\nEver felt that you were so busy you spent all your time paralysed trying to figure out where to start, and couldn't get much done? Computer scientists have a term for this - thrashing - and it's a common reason our computers freeze up. The solution, for people as well as laptops, is to 'work dumber': pick something at random and finish it, without wasting time thinking about the bigger picture.\n\nBestselling author Brian Christian studied computer science, and in the book Algorithms to Live By he's out to find the lessons it can offer for a better life. He investigates into when to quit your job, when to marry, the best way to sell your house, how long to spend on a difficult decision, and how much randomness to inject into your life. In each case computer science gives us a theoretically optimal solution, and in this episode we think hard about whether its models match our reality. \n\nLinks to learn more, summary and full transcript.\n\nOne genre of problems Brian explores in his book are 'optimal stopping problems', the canonical example of which is ‘the secretary problem’. Imagine you're hiring a secretary, you receive *n* applicants, they show up in a random order, and you interview them one after another. You either have to hire that person on the spot and dismiss everybody else, or send them away and lose the option to hire them in future.\n\nIt turns out most of life can be viewed this way - a series of unique opportunities you pass by that will never be available in exactly the same way again.\n\nSo how do you attempt to hire the very best candidate in the pool? There's a risk that you stop before finding the best, and a risk that you set your standards too high and let the best candidate pass you by.\n\nMathematicians of the mid-twentieth century produced an elegant optimal approach: spend exactly one over *e*, or approximately 37% of your search, just establishing a baseline without hiring...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/VO1STE7hN95RRg9QdLo4soV2VhhbR9PF5ZZlRhDYcwE/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzQxNDAyLzE2ODM1/NDQ1NDAtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}